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Post by angilasman on Jun 16, 2019 11:46:37 GMT -5
^ Yes, so many later themes originated in the theme to Varan! It's one of Ifukube's greatest pieces of music.
The movie was going to be a co-production with an American television company, but that company apparently folded after Toho had already done some production work. Similar thing happened with Latitude Zero. The US funding disintegrated and Toho ended up with half the budget they were supposed to have. It was a bit more dramatic there, since they were already in the process of making the movie when the other side weighed out. They had to deal with keeping Cesar Romero and Joseph Cotten around to finish the movie! Very stressful!
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Post by angilasman on Jun 2, 2019 11:57:25 GMT -5
Dogora is majorly underrated, and Gorath has some of the best miniature effects.
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Post by angilasman on Jun 2, 2019 10:59:20 GMT -5
I knew Toho couldn't make another until Kong, but wasn't aware of where Toho's heads were at as for what they wanted to do after that. Thanks for the info. The line about "Shin is still heavily merchandised and the focal point of new amusement Park attractions and such." gave me a chuckle because it made me think of Gigan and cockroaches. But also I'd love to see a Simpsons-esque parody on a Shin-based amusement park. (kids enjoy the "gouts of blood" waterslide!) Toho just created a nifty new version of King Ghidorah that's apparently going to be a part of the Godzilla vs. Evangelion ride at Japan's Universal Studios. If you go to the park you can even pick up a figure of this original design!
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Post by angilasman on Jun 2, 2019 9:58:48 GMT -5
So we have Kong/Godzilla next, then Toho can make another if they want. After that? Anyway, speaking of movies I've never seen... Svengoolie's on. Later dudes. The terms of Toho's deal with Legendary is that Toho can't make a domestic, Japanese Godzilla film while one of their American films is in production. The 5-year gap between Godzilla 2014 and King of the Monsters meant that they could make Shin Godzilla (which was, of course, one of the most successful Japanese Godzilla films of all time). The animated Netflix three partner was apparently made because animation falls into some sort of loophole? Toho is pretty much rearing to go to make more films, but until the contract with Legendary is up with next year's Godzilla vs. Kong they can't do so. Now, since all these MonsterVerse films have just pretty much made a small profit or broke even I think vs. Kong is likely to be the end. However, if Legendary does want to continue the partnership they'll have to renegotiate the rights, and I just don't see Toho with their new desire to make more films agreeing to the same terms as they did for this initial three-picture deal. Basically, if next year's film is the last American Godzilla film on the foreseeable horizon we'll likely see another Japanese Godzilla film within a few years. While no plans are set in stone, a representative from Toho has been on the record saying that the idea is a new, rebooted series of interconnected Godzilla films, possibly with solo films for popular monster characters like Mothra or Ghidorah. Although some of the studio prefer the idea of one movie a year, the current tentative plan is one every two years (of course, everything about this plan is tentative!). Despite the enormous popularity of Shin Godzilla in Japan there are no plans to make a continuation of that movie. However, Shin is still heavily merchandised and the focal point of new amusement Park attractions and such. This suits me just fine, because I love the movie but thought it worked better as a one-off radical reinterpretation. The wild ending struck me as more of a shocking exclamation point than it did a cliffhanger setting up another movie.
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Post by angilasman on Jun 1, 2019 18:54:14 GMT -5
^ I loved Skull Island! It's definitely my favorite MonsterVerse film so far, as I love the action and thought the CGI creatures felt very tactile and present and I enjoyed the human characters and their quirkiness even as they haplessly got picked off at a rate of seemingly one a minute (it's pretty much a secret horror movie inside an adventure movie).
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Post by angilasman on May 31, 2019 0:57:40 GMT -5
My verdict is that the new movie is a solid, meat & potatoes, "play the hits" type of Godzilla movie. Good, if somewhat unspectacular for someone who's just watched all 34 movies and got the eerie sensation that "hey, haven't I seen this one before?" In this regard it's very similar to the kind of movies Toho did in the '90s or Masaaki Tezuka did in the early '00s.
The audience was filled with kids, and while I maybe wanted a bit more than "play the hits" none of those kids had heard these songs before! This would be my favorite movie ever as a 7 year old, and for a new generation it may just be that!
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Post by angilasman on May 29, 2019 23:47:21 GMT -5
The 2014 film was a Spielbergian exercise in restraint, Shin Godzilla was a blisteringly funny satire with apocalyptic imagery, the anime was all technobabble and psychobabble, and from the sound of it this new movie is a Destroy All Monsters/Final Wars style monster rally.
Godzilla is my favorite franchise because other than the presence of Godzilla each movie can be totally different than the previous. This is probably why the 90s and 00s films are my least favorite era, since in those it feels like Toho developed a cookie-cutter formula for what a Godzilla film should be and stuck largely to that. I hope the next one is also different!
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Post by angilasman on May 10, 2019 19:13:59 GMT -5
^ The last time I watched all the Godzilla films in order was a decade ago. At that time the series was on hiatus and it seemed like the days of kaiju movies were long gone. Now there's five more Godzilla movies to watch with a sixth on the way!
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Post by angilasman on May 8, 2019 20:53:09 GMT -5
I'm not entirely unspoiled, but I have avoided most of the trailers and TV spots and avoided any in-depth spoiler discussion online. Trying to go into the movie fresh!
I've now passed the Roland Emmerich Godzilla from 1998. 11 movies to go!
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Post by angilasman on Apr 27, 2019 22:36:17 GMT -5
I'm glad to see Mill Creek doing another special edition kaiju release. Their initial Gamera discs had flaws, but were serviceable, but that Daimajin release they did a few years later was excellent. It's one of the best home video releases for kaiju movies ever in North America.
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Post by angilasman on Apr 17, 2019 22:09:42 GMT -5
I think it's a mistake to try to fit Hellboy's square peg into a round hole of action tentpole movie. Guillermo del Toro manage to do it twice, but he sort of reinvented the character and added a bunch of stuff to it not present in the comic but was able to get away with it because he comes from similar quirky sensability and love of the macabre and weird and folklore and such. The fact that Guillermo is always completely sincere and open-hearted in his works was also a factor, and it found reciprocation in Ron Perlman's soulful performance. They created a Hellboy who is different from the comics, but who was well-rounded and stood on its own.
Of course, I'd love to see Guillermo finish his Trilogy of movies and wrap up the story of his interpretation of the character, but barring that what I would love to see in the new Hellboy movie, a new reboot, would be an ultra low budget horror movie. The most expensive thing about it should be the Hellboy makeup and maybe some sort of really big monster at the end. Hellboy isn't about action, it's about mood and creepiness. The best Hellboy Comics aren't the overarching mythologies, those are quite good, it's the weird little one-offs. In short, what I wouldn't give for low-stakes monster-of-the-week Hellboy movie!
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Post by angilasman on Apr 15, 2019 19:25:50 GMT -5
Rewatching the entire series (just finished Return of Godzilla) and trying to avoid the copious amount of footage in all the adds!
Very excited!
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Post by angilasman on Apr 12, 2019 23:18:37 GMT -5
My short review of the new Hellboy: one of my favorite comic books of all time made into one of the worst comic book movies of all time! It's mean-spirited, cheap looking waste of potential. During the first half it's actually kind of an enjoyable bad movie, with Hellboy going through essentially these short story adventurers (Mexican wrestling, fighting giants in the English countryside), but once the main plot kicks in about half way through it becomes quite the chore. Do yourself a favor and read the comics instead. The new Omnibus Editions make Hellboy easier and cheaper to read than ever before!
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Post by angilasman on Mar 17, 2019 9:46:46 GMT -5
Alright, today's the day. So, let's see what Netflix has to offer. Episode List: The Day the Earth Froze Hobgoblins The Beatniks The Sinister Urge Bride of the Monster The Incredibly Strange Creatures... Gunslinger Deathstalker The Beast of Yucca Flats The Atomic Brain Honestly, I think it's pretty piss poor that they only have ten episodes and removed ALL of the classics that were up before. However, I haven't seen a single one of these episodes yet. So, at least there's something new for me to check out. What do you think, peoples? Yeah, it's a bummer that there's so few. Still... there's some real classics here.
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Post by angilasman on Feb 14, 2019 23:32:39 GMT -5
Pretty cool!
Apparently Bill Corbett is doing a voice on some adult swim show. A lot of great voices in mst3k. It's a wonder a lot of them don't have more frequent voice work.
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